Eight killed in car bomb blast

Eight people died when a suicide car bomber hit an Iraqi army checkpoint today.

The suicide bomber struck at 8.45am (6.45am Irish time) in the northern city of Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, said Mosul police Colonel Abdel-Karim al-Jubouri.

Four soldiers and four civilians were killed in the attack, and another six people were wounded.

In Mosul itself, unidentified gunmen killed a woman who was walking with her five-year-old son, al-Jubouri said. The boy was not harmed, he said.

Another two civilians were killed and four more injured when a mortar shell hit a house before dawn in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, said Police Captain Muthana Khalid.

In Baghdad, where sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunni Arabs has been rising steadily, two bullet-riddled bodies were fished out of the Tigris river in the downtown Karrada neighbourhood, said police Lt Bilal Ali Majid.

Both had their hands and legs bound and showed signs of torture – hallmarks of the sectarian death squads that roam the capital.